Jury fi nds man guilty of murder

It took about four hours Thursday for a Franklin County jury to find a resident of a Downtown homeless camp guilty of murder in the beating and strangling of his girlfriend.

County prosecutors argued Danny L. Johnson, 35, was in “a fighting mood” early on the morning of April 19, 2016, after he had scuffled with

a camp neighbor known as “Cowboy,” possibly regarding an affair with Cathleen Howatt, who lived with Johnson and was pronounced dead later that day.

Johnson was found guilty of two counts of murder, one count of domestic violence and one count of tampering with evidence.

“This was not an accident. You saw the extent of her injuries,” Assistant County Prosecutor Heather N. Williams told the jury during closing arguments. “His only intent was to cause her death.”

After the verdict, Judge William Woods sentenced

Johnson to 15 years to life in prison, as well as a two-year concurrent sentence for tampering with evidence.

In the early morning hours of April 19 of last year, neighbor Jennifer Smith testified, she heard noises coming from Johnson’s tent, but she assumed it was the couple having rough sex.

“Here, take that,” Smith said she recalled hearing, along with a series of loud slapping sounds. After that, Williams said, there was only silence.

Hours later, at about 7 a.m., Johnson awoke Smith’s fiance, Edgar McQueen Jr., to show him Howatt’s bloodied and bruised face, lying in an adjacent tent belonging to a neighbor of the couple.

McQueen testified that he could barely recognize Howatt’s face. Johnson, whose hands were swollen, told McQueen that someone had knocked him out and then beat her to death.

Johnson then fled, McQueen said.

The Franklin County coroner later determined Howatt had sustained a traumatic brain injury and a fractured hyoid bone, which is situated in the middle of the throat, between the chin and larynx.

The prosecution argued that Johnson and the victim likely fought that night because of a relationship between her and “Cowboy” that developed while Johnson was in jail.

Johnson has a record of prior convictions that include aggravated assault,

aggravated menacing and domestic violence that span from 2001 to 2010.

Johnson’s defense attorney, Robert F. Krapenc, argued that McQueen had been intoxicated that night, made varying statements about details of the incident and that his testimony was unreliable.

Krapenc told the jury that “Cowboy” cannot be found. He said his client ran away from the scene because, as a convict, he knew how the situation would look to police.

However, the Columbus police lab said Johnson’s DNA was found along with Howatt’s on her clothing. Her blood was found on Johnson’s shoes.

Before sentencing, the victim’s brother, Bill Howatt, 49, tearfully asked the judge to hand down a maximum sentence for Johnson.

“We got what we wanted,” the victim’s daughter, 25-yearold Peyton Williams, told The Dispatch after the trial.

Bill Howatt told the newspaper his sister was a loving mother of four who came to Columbus in an attempt to escape circumstances contributing to her alcoholism. She wanted a fresh start. She wanted to prove she could do better.

“It doesn’t cure it,” he said of the sentencing. “It is not going to bring her back to us, but it might help somebody else out down the line if he doesn’t do it again.”